96 Rank 4 Fight

What Lucien saw left his mind reeling. The land around was in complete shambles in just one minute, considering they had some traveling time, it took them seconds to transform a forest into a wasteland.

Currently Henry was floating in mid air looking around for something. He also had a sword in his had and space around that sword seemed to wrap and fold, some small cracks spread here and there.

A kilometer away from him there was a humanoid figure that had three horns on it forehead with two on the sides and one in the middle forming perfect symmetry. It's was covered in scales and looked coldly at Henry.

Henry looked around as he was sure that the source of that enormous Domain originated around here, but as he couldn't find anything he turned his attention back to his foe.

"Hell Serpent, what are you doing in the territory of the Scarlet Empire?"

Lucien still looked a bit shocked, but he had already expected this. The humanoid foe was a Beast.

'I guess it makes sense, a Rank 4 Beasts could range from 10 to 100 kilometers in size and a 100 kilometer Beasts would be easily spotted from far away. But weaker people have never seen a Rank 4 Beasts despite its size, so there was bound to be a secret.'

"Don't get cocky, boy. I can be wherever I want."

The Beast spoke back, and didn't show the usual disdain their kind had towards humans. It was much more intelligent and cunning.

"Little lizard, are you sure you want to cross me?"

From what Lucien was hearing the earlier thing was just a greeting, a greeting that lay waste to the whole forest.

"Let me see how are human faring these years, are you guys still getting weaker and weaker?"

Henry didn't utter another word but raised his sword and prepared to strike the intruder down. While the Beasts decided to bring its true form to the fight and instantly turned into a 50 kilometer giant serpent. The three horns grew and enlarged to become almost half a kilometer each.

'So that is how the forest got squashed with just one clash, this thing just has to slitter over and done.'

Just as the snake was about to lunge forward, Henry brought down his sword. There were no particles around it, but space continued warping and cracking. As the blade made the full motion, a line appeared and cut through the middle of the snake. The strike continued forward and cut into the distant Mountains, leaving a valley behind.

The serpent got bisected, but didn't utter a single sound. Almost instantly a new tail grew and the previous tail turned into specs of light that merged back into its body.

"It seems you Beasts are still as weak as ever in comprehending the Paths."

Lucien watched intently as the fight continued.

'So Henry had comprehended the Sword Middle Path.'

Even through both of them were barely Rank 4, they were decimating everything around them at a scary pace. If Lucien was out there, he might not be able to survive the aftershocks. A stray attack would reduce him to ash.

Henry seemed like a true Emperor at this moment, he didn't move a single step from his initial spot, and just kept slashing the serpent as if this was the most fun he had in years. He obviously didn't plan to kill it as he could have slashed its head open a long time ago.

This was the difference in tiers of their Paths. The Beasts had advantage in stats compared to humans, but in Path comprehension they fell short by a lot. Even as Rank 4s they had hard time getting a Middle Path.

Couple of minutes and many lost tails later, Hell Serpent realized that this was not going to work and even though it seemed like growing tails was as easy as drinking water, its vitality was getting damaged.

"Scarlet Emperor, this treatment won't be forgotten."

After it finished speaking it turned and left towards the Mountain which was not far, considering its massive body it was back in its territory in the matter of seconds. Once it had stepped in the territory of the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range, the massive body disappeared.

Henry didn't give chase and just looked at the lizard leaving his Empire. He didn't pay further attention once the massive body was gone and started looking around once more. The Soul Domain Lucien had released was incredibly shocking. It has to be said that even the Rank 4 Practitioners couldn't send their senses out to such distances.

He kept looking around for a while, but still didn't find any clues. Convinced that something stronger than himself took its leave and didn't want to be found, Henry wrapped himself in Darkness and teleported.

Lucien was not so stupid to believe that he left for sure so he stayed in the Crimson World for another week and then send the Darkness Clone to check if Henry was truly back. Once he was convinced, he left the Crimson World and ran at full speed towards the other side of the Empire. He didn't plan to enter the same sleeve of the Mountain Range, but the one at the other side of the Empire, a clean start of sorts.

'This time I created a commotion. I won't spread the Soul Domain for more than 50-100 kilometers at this point of time, as I don't want to repeat this. And 100 kilometers should be plenty for me to retreat to the Crimson World should I detect a Rank 4 Beast.'

The Soul Domain would still keep growing as he Soul grew, and once he was at the peak of Rank 3, he would be able to cover half of the continent in his Domain. Which meant that he could take the Souls of the people dying everyday in half of the continent, as long as he found a way to keep his Domain from disturbing the Rank 4 beings and the Rank 5 Ancestors.

It also meant that he could get the negative energy his subordinated produced from large distances. He couldn't absorb all the negative energy, because it had to be caused by himself, one way or another. Even if he let a clone torture, he could still absorb the negative energy with his main body from far away. The only problem was concealing the energy that spreads once he opens up the whole Domain.

'It's time I start converting my blood to Rank 3 and get the Blood Path there as well. Once I'm stronger I will have more solutions. It shouldn't be long for the Lightning and the Ghoul Path as well.'